Neil Young & Crazy Horse - Psychedelic Pill (Reprise)

Aging troubadour is back, with an angry, regretful and lamenting release

November 14, 2012

Reprise

Neil Young & Crazy Horse's second collaborative release of 2012 finds an angry, regretful, and lamenting Young. Opener "Drifting Back" clocks in at just shy of a half hour and wields a heavy hand of free-form songwriting, social commentary and personal demons. It is as much a rebellion against society's casual dismissal of art as a bitter resentment of modern audio formats. The track sets the stage for an unassumingly personal tour given by our aging troubadour. The title track follows suit with hypnotic distortion, phasing to and fro as a wave of electric fuzz with tinges of an acid flashback. Young has crafted an album that is a '70s stoner van, driving in a world with four dollar a gallon gas prices. He traces back to the failures of the '60s, but voices to an audience too far removed, a plea not lost in "Walk Like A Giant." At times disjointed and lacking a center, Psychedelic Pill "tries to make sense of my inner rage." Young is not looking to sell records, but rather to find solace in the catharsis of his own musical merits. —M. R. Brown